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What They Wouldn't Do

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The story follows Sarah Corrigan, a young woman who had been blackmailed into working as a secretary at Orion, a shady company formerly owned by Wilson Fisk. Her life is turned upside down when she stumbles upon Daredevil beating up several Orion employees, and then discovers that Daredevil is Matt Murdock, the blind lawyer from Hell's Kitchen. Matt finds himself having complicated feelings towards how to deal with Sarah, while doing his best to keep his friends safe.

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Tropes

Acceptable Targets: invoked In Chapter 21, Sarah comments about how hectic and dangerous New York City is, with alien invasions, bombings, and shady companies fronting for organized crime.

Sarah Corrigan: You know who doesn't have these problems?

Matt Murdock: most people who aren't us?

Sarah Corrigan: Hermits. Old mountain men who live up in the Adirondacks.

invokedActor Allusion: When Sarah is describing to Matt her encounter with Jason and Vanessa, she says that Vanessa "had an accent. Like, Israeli, maybe? It was hard to..hard to tell." Ayelet Zurer, who plays Vanessa in the show, actually is Israeli.

Acting Unnatural: In chapter 8, Sarah gets dragged out of bed in the middle of the night to help Foggy extricate Matt from underneath some collapsed scaffolding. To discretely move him back to his apartment, they end up having to haul him in a homeless guy's shopping cart, covered up in a blanket. The whole time, Sarah is glancing around nervously hoping that they aren't spotted by any cops.

Foggy Nelson: We're lucky no one is around, because you are acting so suspicious right now. Can you justact normal?

Sarah Corrigan: Normal? I am helping push a passed out vigilante around Hell's Kitchen in a stolen shopping cart at three in the morning. With a stranger. In my pajamas! This is the least normal thing I have ever done.

Foggy Nelson: Alright, alright, fair point. But can you just stop looking around every other second like the FBI is going to drop down on us?

Sarah Corrigan: Sorry, sorry.

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Actually Pretty Funny: Sarah finds it hilarious that Matt, who can take out entire groups of armed men with no problem, can't read a laminated menu in a cheap diner. Matt tries, and fails to hide, that he finds it funny too.

[Matt sent her a glare from behind his dark glasses, though the corner of his mouth curved up almost imperceptibly. The sight only made her laugh more, covering her mouth to try and stifle the sound. It was the kind of laughter that only ever came to her from extreme tiredness, and she had always had difficulty controlling it]

All Girls Want Bad Boys: In one scene, when Foggy is asking Matt for dating advice in regards to Karen, he mentions that Daredevil has a lot of fangirls:

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Ascended Dragon: In chapter 21, we learn that Vanessa Marianna has become an intermediary between Fisk and the outside elements of his organization. Sarah realizes her connection when Vanessa refers to Fisk by first name in conversation.

An Offer You Can't Refuse: Wesley used such an offer to blackmail Sarah into working at Orion. The arrangement is that she works full time, but she only gets half of whatever money she makes each day, the rest going to her father's gambling debts.

Artistic License  Religion: After her failed attempt to fix her dad's traffic ticket (due to Matt being there), Sarah returns home, where her Alzheimer's afflicted dad says he was visited by two men claiming to be Jehovah's Witnesses and even gave him a free Bible. Sarah looks at the Bible in question and notices it's the King James version, not the New World Translation version that the Jehovah's actually use, leading her to suspect that the so-called "Jehovah's Witnesses" were some of Fisk's enforcers paying a visit.

Asshole Victim: Officer McDermott. In chapter 32, as Sarah is stopping by the 15th Precinct trying to see how the investigation into his disappearance is going, she hears Brett talk to another cop about the missing persons campaign McDermott's mother has been carrying out. Sarah can tell that McDermott must have been very much despised by his fellow officers, who don't show much interest in trying to find his body.

In Chapter 22, Sarah and Foggy have a conversation in which Sarah references Law & Order. One hopes they didn't ever watch Criminal Intent and notice Robert Goren's resemblance to Wilson Fisk.

In Chapter 11, when Matt asks Sarah if she'd ever used violence before attacking Ronan, Sarah replies, "Uh...in seventh grade, I slapped a high school boy for telling my friend that her haircut made her look like James Spader." James Spader was the voice of Ultron in Avengers: Age of Ultron.

In Chapter 26, Sarah mentions seeing the movie Noah, a movie which features Anthony Hopkins (Odin from the Thor films) as Methuselah. While that movie's director Darren Aronofsky has worked with MCU actors like Natalie Portman, Mickey Rourke, and Marisa Tomei.

Game of Thrones is referenced on one occasion. Finn Jones (Danny Rand from Iron Fist (2017)) is in that show as Loras Tyrell, as is Jessica Henwick (Colleen Wing) as Nymeria Sand.

At one point, there's an article shown in the Bulletin about the breakup of Ben Affleck and Jennifer Garner's marriage (which happened in 2015, around the same time this work was first published). Affleck and Garner were Matt and Elektra respectively in the 2003 Daredevil movie.

Comic Book Movies Dont Use Code Names: The 'Daredevil' and 'Devil of Hell's Kitchen' names are used interchangeably in dialogue. But Sarah stops thinking of the man in the mask as 'Daredevil' and always thinks of him as Matt after her first run-in with him, figuring that referring to him by his real name in her head makes him seem human and less threatening.

Many of the events of season 1 are referenced repeatedly, such as the various deaths that are tied to Daredevil and were carried out on Fisk's behalf.

When talking with Sarah about the Thai noodle place, Karen says that Matt is a picky eater while Foggy eats about everything. This is a clever reference to Stick's teaching Matt how to tell what goes into his food.

In Chapter 4, when Foggy visits Matt's apartment to catch up on work (he doesn't want to do catchup at the office lest it feel too much like a normal workday), Matt jokingly suggests that they could've asked Karen to come over to make coffee, to which Foggy replies that Karen's coffee " might be a subtle attempt to try and kill us and take over our lucrative establishment". Foggy made similar remarks about Karen's coffee technique in "Shadows in the Glass".

In Chapter 22, someone mentions that Trish Talk has done a segment on whether or not Daredevil is a good or bad guy.

Contrived Coincidence: Sarah just quite coincidentally ends up encountering Karen while mailing packages in a post office, unaware that this is the same Karen that she's heard Matt and Foggy talk about. She is absolutely shocked when she does realize this much later, and Matt is pissed since due to misundstanding he thinks Sarah had deliberately approached Karen.

Continuity Snarl: As the author's notes in chapter 1 point out, there are some inconsistencies with characters that are the result of being retconned by Season 2. For instance, Vanessa Marianna is established as still in New York City, taking care of Wilson Fisk's business on the outside (and has married him and sired his son Richard thanks to conjugal visits), when season 2 has her hiding out overseas protected by an offshore fund Fisk set up with whatever assets weren't seized during his arrest.

Cry into Chest: Matt holds a crying Sarah this way when she has a nervous breakdown upon encountering Ronan in a diner.

Cut Himself Shaving: Just like Matt does in the show proper, it's pretty common for characters here to lie about the source of an injury blatantly caused by an attack.

The cuts Matt sustains to his face from the opening fight with the Orion goons, he passes off as the result of taking the subway and getting his face caught in the train doors.

When Karen and Sarah get into an altercation with the corrupt cop assigned to Wesley's death, Karen breaks her arm and tries to pass it off as the result of falling down the stairs in a subway entrance. Unfortunately, Matt overhears them talking about it, and angered that Karen has gotten hurt as a result of being around Sarah, makes Sarah admit the truth to him.

Deal with the Devil: What Sarah decides to do once she finds out Matt's identity. She rationalizes that since so many things have happened in her life beyond her control, one thing she can do is perhaps help him take down her crooked employers so she can actually have some control of her life.

When Sarah has to borrow one of Matt's Columbia University sweatshirts due to her own clothes being bloodied, her nosy elderly neighbor Mrs. Benedict thinks she's having a sexual relationship. Sarah has to invent the lie that her boyfriend is a dentist to pacify her.

Likewise, in chapter 20, Sarah spends the night at Matt's place after she has a nervous breakdown from encountering Ronan in a diner while having dinner with Matt. She leaves his apartment to go home and change, and happens to be spotted by Foggy as he's arriving at Matt's place. Naturally, Foggy thinks that Matt and Sarah had sex and tries to lecture him on it.

Foggy Nelson: You know, when I said you needed to get laid, sleeping with Sarah was so not what I had in mind.

Matt Murdock: Foggy, I'm not

Foggy Nelson: Nope, let me get this out, because I totally saw this one coming.

Matt Murdock:[skeptically] You did?

Foggy Nelson: You bet your black-pajama-clad ass I did. You always try to keep your hook ups under the radar, but this time there were definite signs. The two of you cozying up in the police station when she got arrested, for example.

Matt Murdock: What, when she was having a panic attack? What was I supposed to do, let her hyperventilate right in the interrogation room?

Foggy Nelson: Of course not. I'm just saying, Mr. Radson was freaking out last week when he got arrested for breaking and entering, and I didn't see you scooting your chair all close to him and wrapping him up in your jacket.

Matt Murdock: Ishe what? [shakes his head] Borrowing a sweatshirt because your clothing is covered in blood is not a sign of romance, Foggy. In fact, I think it might be the opposite.

Foggy Nelson: Yeah, but snuggling up in it after the fact? Questionable. Number three

Matt Murdock:Nothing happened, Foggy. She fell asleep here, and I slept on the couch. [beat]

Foggy Nelson: You're sure?

Matt Murdock: Pretty positive. I'm blind, but I think I would have noticed that.

Dirty Cop: Aaron McDermott and Connor Donovan, two 15th precinct cops, are shown to be on the take. They work for Ronan, and have an arrangement similar to Whitey Bulger and John Connolly, wherein they tail Sarah, provide Ronan with information on her movements, and in return, Ronan rats out one of his accomplices to them.

Does This Remind You of Anything?: In Chapter 21, Sarah's conversation with Matt about what each of them were doing when the Incident happened sounds very reminiscent of "Where were you on 9/11?" or "Where were you when John F. Kennedy was assassinated?" conversations. In this case, Matt says he and Foggy were at Landman & Zack, and they went on full lockdown for the duration of the invasion. Sarah says she was accompanying a singer at a concert hall, and until a blast blew the roof off, they thought the noise outside was just a really bad thunderstorm.

Doublespeak: Sarah's conversations with Karen are full of them when they talk about Wesley.

During their first encounter, Karen notices a photo of Wesley's body in Sarah's purse. Sarah comments that she still feels like Wesley's tormenting her from beyond the grave, to which Karen agrees, "Sometimes it feels like I can't shake him off either." Sarah takes it that Karen's talking about Wesley trying to blackmail her, which is true. But Karen is also saying that she can't shake off the trauma she's had since killing him.

During their second meeting, Karen and Sarah briefly mention the people that Wesley had threatened trying to get their cooperation. Sarah says he threatened her family (her father, specifically). Karen says "the same," but she's referring to Matt and Foggy, not to her biological family.

Sarah remembers James Wesley sporting this sort of persona when he "hired" her to work for Orion.

Jason is a perpetual smiler and always seems very cheerful and jovial. That is, until you cross him or he suspects you of disloyalty, then he shows his true sociopathic colors.

"Friends" Rent Control: Averted. Sarah's low paying job means she's way behind on many of her bills and her water gets shut off at one point.

Fridge Logic: In-Universe, during Chapter 10, Foggy points out that Matt lying on his couch to recuperate doesn't make much sense given that his bed's probably more comfortable, with silk sheets and everything.

When Matt tells Foggy that he's planning to teach Sarah some of his self-defense techniques, Foggy seems to think this trope is in play.

Foggy Nelson: So training sessions, huh?

Matt Murdock: Basic self-defense lessons.

Foggy Nelson: I don't know kind of sounds like an excuse to get all sweaty and handsy, in my opinion.

Matt Murdock: You know, I'm not the shameless deviant you try to paint me as, Foggy.

Foggy Nelson: I'm just saying, it seems suspicious. I mean, you've never offered to train me.

Matt Murdock: I'd gladly show you how to take a punch right now.

Foggy Nelson: You couldn't handle these fisticuffs of fury, Murdock!

Matt Murdock: I believe it.

Lauren seems to think Sarah's only up to taking self-defense lessons from Matt with the interest of sleeping with him. Sarah not only points out that no, that is not the case, she also recalls when Lauren took a kickboxing class with the explicit intent of sleeping with the instructor.

Matt Murdock: If you're thinking of lying, rethink it. Do you know who I am?

Sarah Corrigan: Yes.

Matt Murdock: What's my name?

Sarah Corrigan: Matthew. M-Matthew Murdock.

It happens again later on when Sarah goes to the 15th precinct to fix a traffic ticket her dad received, at the same time that Matt is there, and he mistakenly thinks she's there to rat him out. Matt hastily follows her and drags her into an alleyway to interrogate her:

Matt Murdock: You know, if you were going to try and turn me in without me catching you, it might have been a smarter move to go to a police station not in Hell's Kitchen.

Sarah Corrigan: Okay, w-wait. I know what you're thinking

Matt Murdock: I'm thinking that you just broke your part in our agreement, Sarah, less than twenty four hours after you swore you wouldn't, so give me one good reason why I shouldn't do the same.

Sarah Corrigan: I wasn't there about anything to do with you. I swear. I wasn't going to

Matt Murdock: We'll get to what you were going to do in a minute. What I need to know right now is what you've already done. If the police station wasn't your first stop then my friends are in danger, meaning you have about ten seconds to tell me the truth. Have you already told someone?

Matt Murdock: So you're telling me that your mysterious reason for being in the police station has nothing to do with me? Nothing to do with Orion, or why you're working there? No connection to any of that at all?

Hidden Depths: Father Lantom is a fan of science fiction literature, and quotes the "Litany Against Fear" from Dune during one of Matt's confessionals with him.

Identical Stranger: Sorta. When Donovan is watching Sarah, he's been told by Ronan that her best friend has long blonde hair but not much more, so he mistakes Karen for Lauren.

Internet Detective: After recognizing Matt's cuts, Sarah finds herself going on the Internet to research him. A large number of articles come back surrounding the truck accident and chemical spill that blinded him as a kid, and many more about the murder of his father. She even finds a Facebook photo of Matt and Foggy celebrating their graduation from Columbia Law School.

As Karen and Sarah converse about Wesley and how he ruined both of their lives, the conversation turns to his death, as Karen had noticed Sarah carrying a photo of Wesley's body in her purse. She responds to Sarah's claim that Wesley liked manipulating those beneath him, by saying "Yeah well, that kind of shit's how you end up getting shot with your own gun." Sarah is familiar with the circumstances of Wesley's death due to gossip, but she's never heard anyone say that Wesley was shot with his own weapon. Her suspicions are further confirmed when Karen mentions she's been keeping tabs on the investigation into Wesley's death.

In Sarah's first encounter with Matt in the Daredevil suit, he tries to find out how much she knows about him. Matt doesn't know that she's gone on the Internet to research him. He panics when she accidentally refers to Foggy by his nickname, which she has no reason to know.

Karen learns that Matt is Daredevil after a misunderstood conversation with Foggy about Matt's involvement with Sarah.

Legitimate Businessmen's Social Club: Like Union Allied, Fisk had used Orion Incorporated as a front to launder his illegitimate income. But Union Allied was a 100% legitimate construction company and its legal department (where Karen had worked) was where the shady activities took place. Orion is little more than a front for criminal activity.

Living Lie Detector: Matt's lie detector abilities are thrown off by Sarah, since her heart rate when she's scared is not that different from when she's lying.

Loophole Abuse: When the police try to interrogate Sarah, the interrogator tries to use a loophole to question Sarah even though she refuses to answer questions until Matt and Foggy show up.

Connor Donovan: So, I was thinking that to help pass the time, I might tell you a little bit about what kind of jail time we're potentially looking at here. Not for you, necessarily. But just for, you know whoever it turns out is responsible for these things.

Connor Donovan: I'm not supposed to ask you any questions. And you're not supposed to tell me anything. But I can talk. And you can listen, or not listen. It's up to you.

Of course, since Donovan and his partner McDermott turn out to be on the take, it's pretty obvious anything they got out of Sarah, lawyer or not, was probably not going to be used in court. Especially after Matt and Foggy learn from Brett that the room Sarah was being questioned in isn't a standard interrogation room but is actually the precinct's drunk tank.

Love Epiphany: In the chapter 28, after her terrible date night and then being accompanied by Matt, when he leaves, Sarah realizes that the feeling of tension she had with him at her side was what she missed for her date.

Meet Cute: Platonic type, but Sarah happens to run into Karen Page at the post office while they're both waiting in a long line to mail packages, and they're soon talking pretty amiably like best friends, Karen even inviting Sarah out to a noodle place she's taken Matt and Foggy to. They even can relate to each other given their past experiences with Fisk's men.

Matt doesn't want Sarah talking to the police about him. But then her dad gets a traffic ticket for driving without a license, forcing her to go to the 15th Precinct to resolve the ticket (as making a reasonable case to the police can get them to ask the judge to dismiss the ticket or consider leniency). While waiting in line, she sees Matt, Foggy and Sgt. Brett Mahoney exiting an interrogation room and panics, as she knows Matt is going to think she's there to turn him in. Which, sure enough, he does. Once he finds out the truth, he tries to make amends by fixing her dad's traffic ticket without her knowledge.

When Foggy catches Sarah leaving Matt's building after spending the night there (due to a bad encounter with Ronan), he thinks Matt and Sarah had sex, forcing Matt to explain that no, that didn't happen.

Sarah has one when she overhears people talking about Brian Yates being murdered, the very day after she gave Matt his address, and they're mentioning that a masked man had been seen leaving his place.

She earlier has one when she first realizes Matt is the masked man she saw at Orion.

After by chance running into Karen at the post office, Sarah's purse strap breaks and her contents fall out. Karen's face turns pale when she notices a photo of James Wesley's body.

Karen Page: Why do you have this?

Sarah Corrigan: Did you did you know him? James Wesley? [Karen nearly flinches again, which to Sarah means "yes"]

Karen Page:No. II didn't.[brushes off her skirt and heads for the doors] I have to go, I'm sorry.

Sarah Corrigan: Wait! [stops Karen as she makes it to the doors] Listen. II know what kind of guy Wesley was. Maybe I can help you.

Karen Page: No. You really can't.

Sarah Corrigan: James Wesley ruined my life. [Karen looks at Sarah intently] In fact, he's still doing a pretty good job of ruining it. Like like he never died.

One Dialogue, Two Conversations: In chapter 31, Karen catches the tail end of Matt and Foggy having a conversation about Sarah, after Sarah calls Foggy at the office. So when Foggy and Karen go get drunk at Foggy's apartment, and the conversation turns to Sarah, for a while Foggy is talking about Matt being Daredevil while Karen is talking about Sarah becoming pregnant because of Matt.

Foggy Nelson: Are you angry?

Karen Page: Yes! [hits Foggy on the arm] How could you guys not tell me about this? This is a huge deal.

Foggy Nelson: Ow. You're strong when you're drunk. And I know, it is a big thing to keep from you. I'm sorry.

Karen Page: I don't even know where to start asking questions. Doesdoes he have a plan of some kind for all this?

Foggy Nelson:[shakes his head] Not that I can tell. I think he's just kind of working it out as he goes.

Karen Page Oh, great. That'll turn out well. He goes on all these rants about how we need to be more careful with our cases and everything and then he goes out andI know it's not the same thing, but Jesus. Also, he's an adult, has it not occurred to him to use some kind of protection?

Foggy Nelson: Well, he kind of does, but it's this flimsy stuff he gets off eBay. I keep telling him to upgrade, but he's all, "No, it'll slow me down," blah, blah.

Karen Page: Men... [rolls her eyes] And Sarah? Is he helping her out?

Foggy Nelson: Sarah? Oh. Yeah, I mean, he's trying to help her as much as he can with her whole situation. That's how their whole thing got started, actually

Karen Page: That's how it began? They didn't know each other at all first?

Foggy Nelson: No, and it was awful. He thought she was going to use it against him, and she thought he was basically the biggest jerk in the world. Which, to be fair, he was acting like it. But they're good now.

Karen Page: Well, I hope so. So, what's he going to do? I mean, is he going to stick this out?

Foggy Nelson: It seems like it. You know how Matt is. He has to do what he thinks is the right thing.

Karen Page: Well, of course it's the right thing! What other option is there?

[Foggy gave her a mildly offended look; had she forgotten he and Matt were both lawyers?]

Foggy Nelson: You know, now that I think about it, Sarah is pregnant, and that is what I was talking about. I got confused.

[But it was too late. The slow dawning of realization spread across Karen's face as she put two and two together, always too quick on the uptake for her own good. Her piercing blue eyes widened as she got an expression that was all too familiar to anyone who knew her: the one she made when she finally solved a puzzle.]

Only Bad Guys Call Their Lawyers: Averted with Sarah, who is a good person and is smart enough to call Matt and Foggy when the police take her in for questioning and refuses to answer questions until they arrive.

Person as Verb: Foggy and Sarah both refer to Matt's nighttime activities as "Daredeviling".

Police are Useless: When Wesley propositioned, er, blackmailed Sarah into taking over her father's debts to Fisk, she went to the precinct right away. The desk officer, however, turned out to be on the take:

Even with Fisk in jail as well as many of the cops he paid off, Sarah still doesn't trust the cops, as there's no way of knowing if any slipped through the cracks.

One Degree of Separation: Foggy and Matt mention Karen a lot during their conversations with Sarah, but never actually describe her appearance, only things like her speaking Spanish, her love of cheesy soap operas, etc. Subsequently, by pure chance, Sarah ends up in line behind Karen while mailing packages at a post office, with no idea that this is the Karen that Foggy and Matt had been talking about. After a conversation in which they briefly talk about having worked for shell companies under Fisk's control, and about Wesley, Karen invites Sarah out to dinner at a Thai place she's taken Matt and Foggy to. It's only when Karen offhandedly mentions Matt and Foggy by name that Sarah realizes just who she's been talking to. This leads Sarah to panic as she knows Matt will probably not be happy to know that she and Karen are meeting behind his back. Especially since Karen gets her arm broken getting into an altercation with a corrupt cop in Ronan's pocket.

Posthumous Character: James Wesley is revealed to have been responsible for strongarming Sarah into taking over her father's debts to Fisk. Likewise, Matt and Sarah individually learn that Karen was the one who killed him.

Matt's lie detector abilities are not infallible. They are complicated by people whose heart rates aren't that much different when they're terrified vs. when they're lying.

The relative ease with which Sarah figured out Matt's double identity leaves Matt in a constant state of paranoia, always concerned that she might accidentally slip his identity to the cops or to the criminals at Orion.

It's established that Karen has become somewhat paranoid after killing Wesley. Her face turns pale when she finds a photo of Wesley's body in Sarah's purse and she later mentions keeping tabs on the police investigation into his death.

After being initially blackmailed by Wesley, Sarah tried to go to the police, unaware that there were crooked cops on Fisk's payroll. The desk officer warned her not to come back lest she wanted to get herself killed. Even after Fisk is arrested, Sarah still doesn't trust the police because there's no way to know if the FBI sweep missed a few corrupt cops. And it turns out some of the crooked cops are still working for the guys who run Fisk's former shell companies.

Sarah's connections to so many suspicious criminal incidents happening at Orion fails to go unnoticed by Brett.

Red Right Hand: During the initial fight where Sarah stumbles upon Daredevil, she witnesses an Orion goon slash him with a glass shard, leaving a nasty checkmark shaped gash on his face. The next day, Sarah returns to her building, and sees her elderly neighbor Mrs. Benedict being escorted by Matt. She notices a fresh looking cut on his face in the shape of a checkmark and recognizes him as the man she saw at the office.

Despite taking place after Fisk's downfall, Matt is still wearing the original Daredevil suit he wore up until the season 1 finale, with the black face-covering bandanna rather than the red helmet. The author's notes state that this is because certain scenes in the plot (like when Foggy and Sarah pull Matt out from under scaffolding) require Matt to be wearing the suit in which he was more likely to get injured. To explain this, there's a scene where Sarah echoes Claire's suggestion that Matt might consider getting more protection for his suit, and Matt counters that Melvin Potter has gone into hiding until the rest of Fisk's guys are caught.

The events of season 2 are ignored in favor of creating the story's timeline, except for the events depicted in flashbacks: Matt still dated Elektra in college, as he remembers when she tried to get him to kill Roscoe Sweeney.

Chapter 36 has a scene of Sarah walk in on Stick tending to a wounded Matt. The scene combines two different scenes from season 2: the scene in "Dogs to a Gunfight" where Matt's hearing temporarily goes out after he gets shot in the head by Frank, and the scene at the end of "Guilty as Sin" where a Hand ninja in his apartment shoots him in the shoulder with an arrow before getting killed by Elektra. Stick even uses the same concoction he uses in season 2 to cure Elektra.

Secret Keeper: After Ronan is killed, Brett finds Daredevil's mask in a storm drain, but rather than bag it, he chooses to keep it a secret.

Shipper on Deck: Mrs. Benedict, Sarah's elderly neighbor, always is trying to play matchmaker between Sarah and other people. This is much to Sarah's annoyance. When having an espionage meeting with Matt under the guise of one of these matchmaker moments, Sarah thinks, "So not the time for your weird, sneaky matchmaking, Mrs. B."

Shrouded in Myth: Many of Daredevil's actions are enveloped in rumor, from those who suffered broken legs, broken arms, concussions, severe blood loss, and those who got put into comas.

Spotting the Thread: Once Matt learns about Sarah's conversation with Karen about James Wesley's death, he begins to suspect that Sarah's suggestion that Karen killed Wesley is true. In particular, he realizes that Karen started acting like a nervous wreck around the same time Wesley was killed - drinking heavily, not talking much, and jumping at the slightest noises. Furthermore, he realizes that due to the fact that he and Foggy weren't on speaking terms, neither of them wondered where she was at the time of the shooting.

Sarah asks Matt at one point if he was doing his Daredevil schtick at the time of the Incident. Matt replies that the incident where he beat up the molesting father wasn't until a year later. Even if he was active at the time of the Incident, aliens are out of his league, and Landman & Zack went on lockdown for the duration of the attack.

Learning that Matt hasn't left New York City once in his life, Sarah suggests that he take a vacation and let the Avengers take over crimefighting in Hell's Kitchen, to which Matt retorts that arms dealers and organized crime are a bit below their pay grade.

Suspiciously Idle Officers: Averted. After McDermott is killed, Ronan thinks that he can get to Sarah through her friend Lauren or through Matt and tells McDermott's partner Donovan to keep an eye on her until she makes contact with one of them. Donovan counters, "I can't follow her twenty-four seven, you know. I do have an actual job."

Spotting the Thread: Matt and Foggy are suspicious of Donovan and McDermott, the two cops who interrogate Sarah. Off the bat, Foggy is suspicious because the interrogation room doesn't have any two-way mirror, windows, or cameras, meaning the conversation isn't being recorded and no one's observing. Then they learn later from Brett that the room in question is not an interrogation room, but a room where the cops put intoxicated people who are too rowdy for the drunk tank. Then Sarah's father recognizes one of the cops from a news photo as one of the so-called "Jehovah's Witnesses" who visited him.

Take That!: Sarah sees an opinion piece criticizing Daredevil in the Bulletin that was written by Lauren's cousin Cecilia Gladstone. She's interrupted in her thoughts by Jason, who comments that she looks like she's reading her own obituary. Sarah immediately claims she was looking at the other article on the page with the opinion piece...which happens to be about Ben Affleck and Jennifer Garner's messy divorce. Affleck and Garner were Daredevil and Elektra respectively in the 2003 Daredevil movie.

That Came Out Wrong: When Matt and Foggy show up at the precinct to represent Sarah while she's being questioned.

Foggy Nelson: Something's up here, Matt. Starting with whatever the hell this room is. I've never seen an interrogation room with no windows, no mirrors, and no cameras. What is this, the Gitmo of Hell's Kitchen?[Sarah whips her head around to look at him in alarm]

There Are No Coincidences: Matt refuses to believe it's just a total coincidence that Sarah could happen to run into and become friends with Karen by chance, and initially assumes that Sarah deliberately sought Karen out.

When Matt and Foggy show up to aid Sarah when the police take her in for questioning, Foggy gets suspicious of the interrogation room, at one point calling it the "Gitmo of Hell's Kitchen", alarming Sarah. Foggy tries to backpedal with little success.

When Sarah and Matt converse about the "Incident" in chapter 21, they mention where they were when it happened: Sarah was at a concert hall that took damage, while Landman & Zack went on lockdown. The conversation plays out like a "Where were you on 9/11?" conversation, and this is intentional on the author's behalf because, like 9/11, "The Incident" affected all New Yorkers in one way or another and caused a ton of destruction and loss of life while the rest of the nation/world watched.

Thicker Than Water: Foggy points out that despite her lack of trust and obvious fear of Matt, Sarah still willingly jumped out of bed to help pull Matt out from under fallen scaffolding.

Trapped by Gambling Debts: Sarah's father has early onset Alzheimer's, and is also a drinker and heavy gambler. He got into debt with Fisk, and due to forgetting to pay them, Fisk had men sent to beat him up and put him in the hospital. Wesley then approached Sarah and blackmailed her into taking over repayment of her father's debts by working for Orion, with half her daily pay going towards the debt.

Verbal Tic: One will notice that Sarah has a habit of saying, "I swear" in her sentences when Matt thinks she's lying or dishonest.

In Chapter 10, Foggy gets to deliver one to Matt to call him out for how he's handling Sarah, and how his using threats to control her isn't really helping.

In Chapter 6, when Matt drags Sarah into an alleyway to grill her (thinking that she was at the precinct to rat him out), she finally gets to point out that his constantly threatening her isn't making her trust him:

Matt Murdock: You accuse me of killing someone, then hang up and mysteriously disappear for a night. And now you want me to just take your word that you were in the police station the very next day for some completely unrelated reason? But you can't tell me what? I'm just supposed to accept that on faith?

Sarah Corrigan: W-well I have to take it on faith that you won't decide to just up and kill me after I help you take down Orion. Or even sooner. Andand that's not helped by the fact that you spend half your time threatening me in every freaking alleyway in Hell's Kitchen!

We Do Not Know Each Other: In chapter 3, Matt and Sarah have to pretend not to know each other when Sarah runs into him talking with her neighbor. Sarah is rather hesitant, while Matt is able to effortlessly keep up the charade.

Would Hit a Girl: Matt's first reaction upon Sarah recognizing his identity is to threaten her. His panic at her saying Foggy's name leads him to accidentally choke her unconscious. Out of guilt, he takes her back up to her apartment and lays her down on the couch to recover, still divided about his actions: on the one hand, he shouldn't be using such force on a woman clearly not fighting back. But her mentioning Foggy's name had scared him shitless, and he acted irrationally.

Matt Murdock: I don't want to interrogate a girl, Foggy. Especially not one who's about half a foot shorter and seventy pounds lighter than me.

Foggy Nelson: Seventy pounds? How much does all that martial arts muscle weigh, man?

Matt Murdock: Foggy.

Foggy Nelson: I know, I know. I don't want to see you running around terrorizing women either, especially since I'm sure if she's in anyway connected to your life she must be a hot one. [Matt sighs in exasperation] But I mean, what other options do you have here, Matt? She works for the Big Bad Company that you're trying to fight. She's gotta know what kind of company that place is, and she still chooses to work there. And it's especially sketchy that she was lurking around the place in the middle of the night. This chick doesn't sound like the most trustworthy person to know your secret. If she tells even one of those guys about who you really are

Matt Murdock: I know, Foggy. I'm not saying that I'm not going to interrogate her. I'm just saying I'm not going to like it.

Foggy Nelson: Do you usually like it?

Used to Be a Sweet Kid: It's commented that Sarah used to be a lot more cheerful and open with her friends before she got blackmailed into paying off her father's gambling debts.

You Need to Get Laid: Foggy is incredulous to find that Matt hasn't really kept his sex life up, since becoming Daredevil. And apparently it never occurred to Foggy that Matt wasn't actually sleeping with any paralegals, leading to:

Foggy Nelson: Hang on all those nights that you let me believe you were sleeping with hot paralegals were you out Daredeviling?

Matt Murdock:[clears his throat] Well I never actually said I was sleeping with any of them. You just assumed.

Foggy Nelson: Matt! Sleeping with a hot paralegal is a sacred thing! You can't lie about that.

Matt Murdock: Technically, I did go out with some of them. In the beginning. But then it just got more time consuming and injury inducing. I don't think a lot of girls are into giant bruises and poorly done stitches. So, I just kept using it as an excuse.

Foggy Nelson: Wait, so, when's the last time you actually got laid? [Matt leans back in his chair and sighs in aggravation; Foggy leans forward and whispers...] Are you saying you haven't had sex since you started getting your illicit crime-fighting on? Matt, do you know how long that's been?

Matt Murdock:[annoyed] It hasn't been at the top of my priority list, Foggy. I've kind of been busy trying to keep Hell's Kitchen from being overrun by criminals.

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